All businesses and workers now face an unprecedented threat in the presence of COVID-19. The spread of the virus has altered all aspects of our lives—including how we make a living. Businesses are grappling with the continued need to support a remote workforce as well as coping with uncertainty, supply chain concerns, significant market volatility, local and national mandates, and so much more, which are collectively beyond the scope and scale of most business continuity processes (BCP) and disaster recovery (DR) plans and infrastructure. As a result, the business of many financial service firms is at risk of being severely impacted.
In times of natural or economic disaster, it is vital to ensure access to business-critical systems. Are your employees able to work from home, office or other premises if your primary location is down? Even the best-intentioned and most-prepared organizations will struggle to have their operations up and running again anywhere near as quickly as a dedicated managed service provider will be able to achieve with its more concentrated resources, independent systems access, and battle-tested experience in these situations.
A well-managed service provider will always be looking at ways to improve its resiliency and will continually invest in leading-edge technologies and top-tier talent that are cost-prohibitive and beyond the expertise of most independent firms. Our Managed Services run on the same underlying tech stack as the rest of our business, which ensures that our services are resilient, redundant, scalable and highly available. Our recent investments in a global hyper-converged network and back-end computing infrastructure are some examples of continued improvement. Our infrastructure was purpose-built to support a large global business and an extensive network of internal and external customers. As a result, our Managed Services customers benefit from this complete and industrial-strength solution.
In times of disruption, businesses need to maintain their relationships with suppliers, partners and customers and avoid causing frustration as a result of disruptions and outages. Being down or unavailable can adversely impact confidence in your organization and jeopardize your long-term relationships. Right now, SS&C is helping many customers in support of their business continuity. Our Technical Services are ensuring 24/7 remote access, monitoring all automation and integration points, managing and testing our separate disaster recovery site, and backing up and maintaining client environments to keep systems accessible to all staff, including those working remotely. Our Business Process Services handle activities such as transaction processing, performance maintenance, and regulatory and client report production to ensure the continuity of business functions, whether on daily, monthly or quarterly cycles, and meet client and regulatory requirements. We are able to provide a wide range of services including moving on-premise software to SS&C hosting facilities and offering professional services to support critical business functions and staff augmentation.
Our institutional and investment management customers, whose offices may be closed or downsized, can still access operational systems remotely as needed and are still able to get work done and meet their clients’ needs without having to get into the office.
Businesses that go it alone need to maintain the requisite tools and expertise for business continuity on site, which isn’t cheap. And those additional costs become harder to justify the longer the company operates without a major event occurring. A good BCP infrastructure and plan also involves tests, audits and certifications in order to be prepared for disruption.
It pays to partner with an experienced and properly-resourced managed services provider who can help you develop a comprehensive IT business continuity plan that you know can be executed the moment it is required, relieving you of the costs, efforts and anxiety associated with attempting such a major undertaking on your own.
For more information on our hosting and managed services, please contact us.
